Why Deeds won big in Virginia

That was the length of the ad he aired on Washington-area broadcast stations in the pivotal final days of his 2-to-1 victory over former state Del. Brian Moran and former Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe.

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In that brief half-minute, the Deeds campaign made some critical points to the well-informed Northern Virginia primary electorate that helped turn undecided voters his way in droves and made a son of the Alleghenies the unlikely victor over two suburbanites in the most populous part of the state.

At the start and finish, the ad’s narrator noted that Deeds had won the endorsement of The Washington Post, a meaningful credential in a race with relatively little-known candidates, and that he was in the mold of Virginia’s two moderate and well-liked Democratic governors, now-Sen. Mark Warner and Gov. Timothy Kaine.

In between, viewers were informed that Deeds supported abortion rights, had high ratings from teachers (translation: safe for the region’s left-leaning Democratic base) and that he was focused on transportation and education (translation: He may be from a place that is culturally light-years away from traffic-choked Tysons Corner, but he understands the region’s perennial priorities).

Though he appears in the ad, not once did Deeds speak and reveal his country-inflected twang to voters in the least-Southern part of the state.

The size of the ad buy was as important as the message. For all the talk of McAuliffe’s massive spending, Deeds’ late momentum sparked a critical influx of dollars that Democratic sources say allowed him to match his deep-pocketed rival on the airwaves at the end. For the last week of the campaign, Deeds spent $950,000 on TV ads to McAuliffe’s $1 million.

Electability, continuity and acceptability on the issues — it was the right message on TV but also in his mail pieces and on the stump. It allowed Deeds to carry all three of Northern Virginia’s congressional districts and turn what would have been a win into a rout.

He was also helped, as runaway winners almost always are, by the flaws and mistakes of his rivals.

Moran, many Virginia Democrats believe, never recovered from McAuliffe’s entry into the race. He became an attack dog — his first ad was a negative spot on the Clinton pal — and sought to position himself as the purist liberal in the race.

But neither tactic worked, as he was overshadowed by McAuliffe’s big bucks and larger-than-life persona.

Still, many Democrats remained unsold on the man known as the Macker, and polls revealed the softness of the support he did have.

“He could just never quite surmount the concern that he was somebody who just hasn’t been involved in Virginia until he decided to run for governor of the commonwealth,” said Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.). “He had trouble shaking the image of a ‘hustler.’”

But Deeds wasn’t simply the third — or last — man standing.

“Once people made the decision not to go with McAuliffe, the electability issue became important,” Robert Holsworth, a longtime Virginia political analyst, said of the late-breaking voters. “And Deeds had that perception that he could win.”

Kristian Denny Todd, a Democratic consultant who was neutral in this race, recalled her own experience in a similarly situated Virginia Democratic Senate primary three years ago, where the more conservative and down-home candidate in the race fared the best in the state’s most liberal and upscale region.

“These are the same Democratic activists in Northern Virginia who nominated somebody who had been a Republican four months prior because they thought he was the guy that could win,” Todd said of her then-client, Sen. Jim Webb. “Northern Virginia voters consider themselves political pundits.”

Moreover, most Virginia Democrats are quite pleased with their political lot right now. They’ve won consecutive gubernatorial races and picked up both U.S. Senate seats and control of the state Senate. They also enjoy a majority of the state’s House delegation and ended a 44-year losing streak by delivering the Old Dominion to President Barack Obama last fall.